Chapter 4

Question 1

What is an attitude?

Answer 1

 Attitudes are considered major determinants of behavior

 People tend to buy products they consider attractive or useful and avoid buying
products they think of as unattractive or useless

 Researchers have not agreed on a definition

 The way we conceptualize attitudes is important for understanding advertising

Question 2

Defining Attitude

Answer 2

 What social psychologists agree on about attitudes:
o Attitudes are evaluative responses

o Attitudes are directed towards some attitude object

o Attitudes derive from, or are based on, three classes of information
- Cognitive
- Affective/emotional
- Behavioral

 People’s attitudes reflect the way they evaluate the world around them, their likes
and dislikes

 Any discriminable aspect of our physical or social environment can become an attitude
object

 Attitudes can derive from three general classes of information or experiences:
o Cognitive information about the attributes that characterize the object
o Affective or emotional reactions evoked by the attitude object
o Behavioral information

 Bem’s self-perception theory states that people rarely have direct, privileged
information about their attitudes and therefore often have to infer them from their
own behavior

 Two major points of contention:
o Whether attitudes should be defined as a predisposition to evaluate an
attitude object in a particular way or as the evaluative response itself
o Whether attitudes are stable or context dependent

 Attitude: A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity
with some degree of favor or disfavor.
o Most influential definition by Eagly and Chaiken
o Three types of evaluative responses:
- Cognitive
- Affective
- behavioral

Question 3

attitudes:

Answer 3

o Attitudes are evaluative responses

o Attitudes are directed towards some attitude object

o Attitudes derive from, or are based on, three classes of information
 Cognitive
 Affective/emotional
 Behavioral

Question 4

Attitudes can derive from three general classes of information or experiences:

Answer 4

o Cognitive information about the attributes that characterize the object
o Affective or emotional reactions evoked by the attitude object
o Behavioral information

Question 5

Two major points of contention on attitude

Answer 5

o Whether attitudes should be defined as a predisposition to evaluate an
attitude object in a particular way or as the evaluative response itself

o Whether attitudes are stable or context dependent

Question 6

Attitude:

Answer 6

A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity
with some degree of favor or disfavor.

o Most influential definition by Eagly and Chaiken

o Three types of evaluative responses:
 Cognitive
 Affective
 behavioral

Question 7

Implicit attitudes

Answer 7

Evaluations of which the individual is typically not aware and that
influence reactions or actions over which the individual has little or no control.

Question 8

Explicit attitudes

Answer 8

Evaluations of which the individual is consciously aware and that can
be expressed using self-report measures.
o Semantic differential scales (bipolar adjective scales)
o Likert scales

Question 9

Affective priming method

Answer 9

Individuals are presented on each trial with a prime.
Immediately afterwards they are presented with positive or negative adjectives and are
asked to decide as fast as possible whether the adjective was positive or negative. The
time it takes people to make this judgement constitutes the dependent measure.

o The basic assumption is that the attitude prime automatically activates an
evaluative response and that this response will either facilitate or inhibit the
evaluative response to the next stimulus
 Depends on whether prime and target are evaluatively (dis)similar

o Consistency of findings with the researchers’ a priori assumptions does not
constitute scientific evidence

Question 10

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Answer 10

The procedure assesses the strength of an association
between two concepts with positive and negative evaluations. The response latencies
are derived from the participants’ use of two response keys, which have been assigned
a dual meaning.
o Assessing stereotypical or otherwise biased attitudes

Question 11

Theory of dual attitudes:

Answer 11

Persuasive advocacies (such as advertising) or novel
experiences might often result in the creation of a novel, second attitude
without replacing the old one. Dual attitudes are different evaluations of the
same attitude object, one on an automatic, implicit level, and one on a
controlled, explicit level.

Question 12

Implicit and explicit attitudes: challenging the unity of the attitude concept

Answer 12

 Implicit attitudes: Evaluations of which the individual is typically not aware and that
influence reactions or actions over which the individual has little or no control.

 Explicit attitudes: Evaluations of which the individual is consciously aware and that can
be expressed using self-report measures.
o Semantic differential scales (bipolar adjective scales)
o Likert scales

 Affective priming method: Individuals are presented on each trial with a prime.
Immediately afterwards they are presented with positive or negative adjectives and are
asked to decide as fast as possible whether the adjective was positive or negative. The
time it takes people to make this judgement constitutes the dependent measure.
o The basic assumption is that the attitude prime automatically activates an
evaluative response and that this response will either facilitate or inhibit the
evaluative response to the next stimulus

 Depends on whether prime and target are evaluatively (dis)similar
o Consistency of findings with the researchers’ a priori assumptions does not
constitute scientific evidence

 On socially sensitive topics, such as prejudice, measures on intrinsic attitudes are likely
to correlate with attitudinally relevant behaviors over which individuals have little
control, but are less likely to be predictive to evaluative responses that are
controllable

 Implicit Association Test (IAT): The procedure assesses the strength of an association
between two concepts with positive and negative evaluations. The response latencies
are derived from the participants’ use of two response keys, which have been assigned
a dual meaning.
o Assessing stereotypical or otherwise biased attitudes

 Great deal of evidence that for socially sensitive issues such as prejudice, the
association between explicit and implicit measures iss very low

 The discordance between implicit and explicit measures of attitude challenges our
conception of attitude as a unitary concept
o Theory of dual attitudes: Persuasive advocacies (such as advertising) or novel
experiences might often result in the creation of a novel, second attitude
without replacing the old one. Dual attitudes are different evaluations of the
same attitude object, one on an automatic, implicit level, and one on a
controlled, explicit level.
o The attitude individuals are likely to endorse at any given time will depend on
whether they have the cognitive capacity to retrieve the explicit attitude, while
suppressing the old, implicit attitude

Question 13

Are attitudes stable or context dependent?

Answer 13

 File-drawer model: The perspective that attitudes are learned structures that reside in
LTM and are activated upon encountering the attitude object.

 This view has been challenged by evidence that suggests that attitudes may be much
less enduring and table than assumed

 Attitudes-as-constructions perspective: Attitudes fluctuate over time and appear to
depend on what people happen to be thinking about at any given moment.

 There is empirical support for both stability and malleability of attitudes

 Attitudes can change when people analyze their reasons for holding them

 Some theorists argue that even if attitudinal judgements are made online each time
we encounter the attitude object, attitudes should remain stable to the extent that at
each point in time respondents draw on similar sources of information

 Attitudes can eb places on a continuum of attitude strength
o Through heavy advertising, initially unfamiliar brans can become household
names that are highly accessible in people’s mind
o When people are asked to evaluate novel and unfamiliar stimuli, they form
their attitude online
o When they are asked to evaluate a familiar object, they can rely on their
knowledge that they have formed over time

Question 14

File-drawer model:

Answer 14

The perspective that attitudes are learned structures that reside in
LTM and are activated upon encountering the attitude object

Question 15

Attitudes-as-constructions perspective:

Answer 15

Attitudes fluctuate over time and appear to
depend on what people happen to be thinking about at any given moment.

Question 16

Implications for the definition of attitude concept

Answer 16

 Both the discrepancy often observed between implicit and explicit attitudes, and the
context dependence of attitudes are difficult to reconcile with the assumption that
these different evaluative responses are the expression of an underlying tendency

 Attitudes: The categorization of a stimulus object along an evaluative dimension.
o Zanna & Rempel
o More consistent with the evidence

Question 17

Zanna & Rempel: Attitude:

Answer 17

The categorization of a stimulus object along an evaluative dimension.
o Zanna & Rempel
o More consistent with the evidence

Question 18

Attitude strength

Answer 18

 Attitude strength: Some attitudes exert a powerful impact on thinking and on
behavior, whereas others have little or no effect.

 Stronger attitudes:
o Higher stability over time
o Greater impact on behavior
o Greater influence on information processing
o Greater resistance to persuasion

Question 19

Attitude strength

Answer 19

Some attitudes exert a powerful impact on thinking and on
behavior, whereas others have little or no effect.

Question 20

Accessibility

Answer 20

 Cognitive accessibility of an attitude: How easily or quickly an attitude can be retrieved
from memory.
o The speed of retrieval indicates the strength of the association between the
representation of the attitude object and the evaluation

 Brand awareness: The ease with which consumers can recall or recognize the brand
and thus also retrieve the beliefs associated with that brand.

 Measured by measuring response time

 Attitude accessibility is negatively related to ambivalence

 Highly accessible attitudes have been found to be more predictive of behavior than
attitudes of low accessibility

 Accessibility moderates the attitude-behavior relationship

 Highly accessible attitudes are more resistant to social influence

Question 21

Cognitive accessibility of an attitude:

Answer 21

How easily or quickly an attitude can be retrieved
from memory.

o The speed of retrieval indicates the strength of the association between the
representation of the attitude object and the evaluation

Question 22

Brand awareness:

Answer 22

The ease with which consumers can recall or recognize the brand
and thus also retrieve the beliefs associated with that brand.

Question 23

Attitude importance

Answer 23

 Attitudes towards issues that are important to the individuals are more strongly held
than attitudes towards unimportant issues

 Determinants of attitude importance:
o The relevance of the attitude to cherished values of the individual
o Relevance to self-interest
o The perceived relevance of an issue for the interests of important reference
groups

Question 24

Determinants of attitude importance:

Answer 24

o The relevance of the attitude to cherished values of the individual
o Relevance to self-interest
o The perceived relevance of an issue for the interests of important reference
groups

Question 25

Attitude knowledge

Answer 25

 Knowledge often accumulates simply as the result of exposure to information about an object  Knowledge about an attitude object is only moderately positively related to its importance  Attitude-relevant knowledge is associated with both attitude importance and media use  Individuals with a high level of knowledge about an issue should be better able to evaluate the validity of arguments about that issue than individuals with little knowledge o Quality of arguments has a greater impact on attitudes of more knowledgeable individuals

Question 26

Attitude certainty

Answer 26

 Attitude certainty: The confidence individuals have in the validity or correctness of their own attitude.  People are typically more certain of their extreme rather than their neutral attitudes  It is possible to hold even a neutral attitude with a high degree of certainty  Attitude certainty is moderately positively corrected with importance  People are more certain of attitudes that derive from their personal experience, that come to mind easily, and for which they perceive a high degree of consensus  Attitudes held with greater certainty are more resistant to change and more predictive of behavior

Question 27

Attitude certainty:

Answer 27

The confidence individuals have in the validity or correctness of their own attitude.

Question 28

Attitudinal ambivalence:

Answer 28

A state in which an individual gives an attitude object equivalently strong positive or negative evaluation

Question 29

Ambivalence

Answer 29

 Attitudinal ambivalence: A state in which an individual gives an attitude object equivalently strong positive or negative evaluation.  The two-dimensional perspective of attitudes assumes that for many attitudes, positive and negative evaluations, rather than being the endpoints of a continuum that ranges from positive to negative, are stored in memory on two separate dimensions, one ranging from neutral to positive and another from neutral to negative  Two strategies for assessing ambivalence: o Measuring it as an experienced state o Calculating it from evaluations as structural ambivalence  The two measures overlap but also reflect different aspects of ambivalence  If one assumes that individuals have a need to be consistent in their evaluation of an attitude object, the two types of ambivalence should have different consequences for information search and processing o Unless there is some need to integrate the information into an overall evaluation, experienced ambivalence may not motivate information search o Experienced ambivalence should only motivate individuals to search for further information if they expect that additional information would help them to resolve this inconsistency  Attitudinal ambivalence has been found to be related to several attributes characteristic of attitude strength o Greater structural ambivalence → less cogniAvely accessible o Ambivalent attitudes less stable than non-ambivalent attitudes  Ambivalent attitudes are less predictive of behavioral intentions and behavior  Ambivalent attitudes are less resistant to social influence  Ambivalence has been found to be positively related to processing motivation  According to dual process theories of attitude change, attitudes that are formed on the basis of elaborate processing are more predictive of behavior than are attitudes based on superficial processing o Since it is more difficult to integrate inconsistent than consistent information, one would expect that participants who were presented with evaluatively inconsistent information would have to engage in deeper processing to form an overall evaluation o Attitudes formed from evaluatively inconsistent information should thus be more predictive of behavior than attitudes that were based on consistent information

Question 30

Evaluative-cognitive consistency

Answer 30

 Evaluative-cognitive consistency: The consistency between people’s attitudes towards an attitude object and the evaluative implications of their beliefs about the object.  Evaluative-cognitive consistency and attitudinal ambivalence should be considered distinct constructs  Evaluative-cognitive consistency is an aspect of attitude strength o Evaluatively-cognitively consistent attitudes have been found to be more stable than inconsistent attitudes

Question 31

Evaluative-cognitive consistency:

Answer 31

The consistency between people’s attitudes towards an attitude object and the evaluative implications of their beliefs about the object.

Question 32

Stereotypes

Answer 32

Beliefs about the attributes of members of an outgroup

Question 33

Brand image

Answer 33

The beliefs, feelings, and evaluations triggered by a brand name. o Strongly influenced by advertising

Question 34

Brand equity:

Answer 34

The value added to a product by a brand name.

Question 35

Price-quality heuristic:

Answer 35

The expectancy that “if expensive then good”, and conversely, “if inexpensive then bad”. o Moderators:  Information load  Presentation format and need for cognitive closure  Desire to arrive at an opinion and avoid confusion, ambiguity, and indecision o Consumers who got a product at a discount derived less actual benefit from the product than consumers who had paid the regular price  Consumer expectations mediate the effect

Question 36

Attitudes based on direct experience versus memory

Answer 36

 Direct experience results in more information about the attitude object than indirect experience  Attitudes based on direct experience are held with greater confidence, are more stable over time, and are more accessible in memory than attitudes that derive from indirect experience  Attitudes based on direct experience are more predictive of future behavior  The more the expectations about an activity prove to be consistent with the actual experience, the better the attitude will predict actual behavior  Greater attitude accessibility and greater stability are independently responsible for the fact that experience-based attitudes are better predictors of behavior than attitudes that are based on indirect experience  Importance of marketing tools to promote direct experience n addition to classic advertising  The predictive validity of experience-based attitudes will depend on the similarity between the context in which the experience is gained and hat in which the actual behavior is performed  Attitudes based on direct experience are better predictors of behavior only when the motivational orientation during the experience is consistent with the motivational orientation during the later activity  Another factor that determines the impact of direct as compared to indirect experience is expertise and trustworthiness of the source of the information o People tend to distrust the information they received through mass media advertising

Question 37

Using heuristics to form attitudes towards products

Answer 37

 Stereotypes: Beliefs about the attributes of members of an outgroup.  Consumers are particularly likely to use heuristics to form an attitude towards a product, when product quality is difficult or ambiguous to ascertain  Brand image: The beliefs, feelings, and evaluations triggered by a brand name. o Strongly influenced by advertising  Brand equity: The value added to a product by a brand name.  Information about country of origin of a product is another heuristic people use in judging products o Particularly important for food  Consumers tend to believe that ethnic food products are likely to be better if they come from the country form which the food originated  Price-quality heuristic: The expectancy that “if expensive then good”, and conversely, “if inexpensive then bad”. o Moderators:  Information load  Presentation format and need for cognitive closure  Desire to arrive at an opinion and avoid confusion, ambiguity, and indecision o Consumers who got a product at a discount derived less actual benefit from the product than consumers who had paid the regular price  Consumer expectations mediate the effect  Service customers tend to infer higher quality of services when duration increases, especially in relation to price  Overreliance on heuristics can lead to a blocking effect, where consumers tend to actively ignore other, sometimes more diagnostic, types of evidence indicative of product quality

Question 38

The formation of evaluative responses based on affective or emotional experience

Answer 38

 Mere exposure – initially neutral stimuli can acquire positive valence through repeated exposure  Classical or evaluative conditioning – initially neutral stimuli can acquire positive/negative valence through association with events that already have positive or negative valence  Affect-as-information – individuals may use the affect evoked by the stimulus or the stimulus context as information about this object

Question 39

Mere exposure

Answer 39

 Advertising “wear-in”: The observation that an advertisement’s impact only increases after an “incubation period” of one or several initial exposures where effects are absent or minimal.  Mere exposure effects o Exposure-attitude relationship is a robust and reliable phenomenon o The effect is stronger with a longer period of delay between exposure and attitude measure o Stimulus recognition is not necessary for the exposure effect to occur o Exposure effect is stronger when stimuli are presented subliminally rather than supraliminally o The effect levels off after 10-20 exposures  Exposure effects can be used for the advertising of new brands  Mere exposure effects on behavior  Frequency of exposure increases perceptual fluency, the ease with which information is processed o Repeated exposure to a stimulus results in a representation of that stimulus in memory o When the stimulus is encountered again, this representation will make it easier to encode and process the stimulus  The hedonic fluency model assumes that the increased ease of processing is experienced as pleasant and that this positive affect will be used as information in the evaluation of the stimulus

Question 40

Advertising “wear-in”:

Answer 40

The observation that an advertisement’s impact only increases after an “incubation period” of one or several initial exposures where effects are absent or minimal.

Question 41

Classical and evaluative conditioning

Answer 41

 Classical conditioning: A neutral stimulus that is initially incapable of eliciting a particular response gradually acquires the ability to do so through repeated association with a stimulus that already evokes this response.  Widely used in advertising, where pictures of supermodels, beautiful scenes engaging music are typically used as unconditioned stimuli  Contingency awareness is the most important moderator o Effects were much stronger with participants who were aware of the contingency between CS and US than for participants who were not aware  Repeated presentation of the CS without the US reduces or even extinguishes the conditioning effect  Evaluative conditioning differs from Pavlovian conditioning  Evaluative conditioning effects can result from several different processes o Misattribution o Some evaluative conditioning procedures might encourage the formation of an association between a brand name and the affect inducing concepts  If the brand is repeatedly paired with the same positively values stimulus (US), a strong link between the brand and the US will be forged and exposure to the brand will activate the representation of the US in memory  Two limitations of this research: o Only tested whether evaluative conditioning influences explicit attitudes o Fictitious or unknown brand names  Evaluative conditioning influences explicit and implicit attitudes  The available evidence suggests that evaluative conditioning does not affect explicit attitudes for towards familiar brands for which consumers hold strong attitudes  Even individuals who have no strong preference for either brand are likely to have formed a set of beliefs about the attributes about these brands  Fishbein and Ajzen suggest that instead of a mere transfer of affect due to the CS-US pairing, meaning is being transferred and beliefs are being changed; this change in belief should then result in a change in attitudes towards the CS  Three different pathways through which evaluative conditioning can change brand attitudes: 1. The positive affect or mood elicited by the US will rub off on the advertised product 2. Repeated pairing of the brand name with a US; indirect positive association 3. The repeated US-CS pairing can result in a transfer of meaning with attributes attributed to the US being transferred to the CS  None of these processes involves signal learning

Question 42

Classical conditioning

Answer 42

A neutral stimulus that is initially incapable of eliciting a particular response gradually acquires the ability to do so through repeated association with a stimulus that already evokes this response.

Question 43

Three different pathways through which evaluative conditioning can change brand attitudes:

Answer 43

 Fishbein and Ajzen suggest that instead of a mere transfer of affect due to the CS-US pairing, meaning is being transferred and beliefs are being changed; this change in belief should then result in a change in attitudes towards the CS  Three different pathways through which evaluative conditioning can change brand attitudes: 1. The positive affect or mood elicited by the US will rub off on the advertised product 2. Repeated pairing of the brand name with a US; indirect positive association 3. The repeated US-CS pairing can result in a transfer of meaning with attributes attributed to the US being transferred to the CS

Question 44

Affect-as-information

Answer 44

 Affect-as-information hypothesis: Feelings may sometimes influence evaluations through feeling-based inferences rather than through repeated association with the stimulus.  Individuals infer their attitude from their present mood state  This misattribution should disappear when people are given reason to discount their mood state as information about the attitude object  Shop owners use strategies to improve the mood of their customers  Context effect occur mainly when feelings towards the target are regarded as relevant for its evaluation o Is the consumer behavior consummatory or instrumental?  Consummatory motivation is influenced more by affect

Question 45

Affect-as-information hypothesis

Answer 45

Feelings may sometimes influence evaluations through feeling-based inferences rather than through repeated association with the stimulus.

Question 46

The formation of evaluations based on behavioral information

Answer 46

 Bem’s self-perception theory argues that when people had to report their own attitude, but had little information about what their attitude might be, they tended to assume that their attitude was consistent with their own recent behavior towards the attitude object  Moderating role of attitude strength  Participants who had been reinforced in the positive direction ended up showing a more positive attitude towards the issue than those reinforced in the negative direction

Question 47

Bem’s self-perception theory argues tha

Answer 47

when people had to report their own attitude, but had little information about what their attitude might be, they tended to assume that their attitude was consistent with their own recent behavior towards the attitude object

Question 48

Attitude structure:

Answer 48

The way the different types of information are integrated into an overall evaluation.

Question 49

Expectancy-value models

Answer 49

 Expectancy-value models: These models conceptualize beliefs as the sum of the expected values attributed to the attitude object. Thus, beliefs have two components, namely and expectancy component and a value component. o The expectancy component reflects the individual’s confidence that the attitude object possesses the attributes they associate with it  Our level of confidence in attributing the attributes would depend on our level of information o The value component reflects the value we attach to the attributes  Attitudes can be predicted by multiplying the valuation of each attribute with the subjective probability with which it is perceived as linked to the object o
 = ∑  ×     In Rosenberg’s model, people’s attitudes towards some attitude object is a function of the extent to which they perceive the attitude object as a means to the attainment of important values or goals o Attitudes as a function of the perceived instrumentality of the attitude objects in reaching a goal and the value that they attach to that goal  Fishbein’s model:
 = ∑    o Ao is the attitude toward the object, action, or event o o bi is the belief i about o o ei is the evaluation of the attribute i o n is the number of salient attributes

Question 50

In Rosenberg’s model,

Answer 50

people’s attitudes towards some attitude object is a function of the extent to which they perceive the attitude object as a means to the attainment of important values or goals o Attitudes as a function of the perceived instrumentality of the attitude objects in reaching a goal and the value that they attach to that goal

Question 51

Fishbein’s model:

Answer 51

 = ∑    o Ao is the attitude toward the object, action, or event o o bi is the belief i about o o ei is the evaluation of the attribute i o n is the number of salient attributes

Question 52

Are beliefs the cause of attitudes?

Answer 52

 Fishbein’s model assumes that people’s attitudes towards a brand are completely determined by the information they possess about the product attributes or, more specifically, the beliefs that are salient at the time they express their attitude  Rosenberg’s model makes that assumption that individuals try to achieve consistency between their evaluations and their beliefs o Chancing people’s evaluation of the attitude object should result in changes in their beliefs about the object o Empirical evidence  Although attitudes can be based on three classes of information, not every attitude is likely to have strong cognitive, affective, and behavioral components

Question 53

Fishbein’s model assumes that

Answer 53

people’s attitudes towards a brand are completely determined by the information they possess about the product attributes or, more specifically, the beliefs that are salient at the time they express their attitude

Question 54

Rosenberg’s model makes that assumption that

Answer 54

individuals try to achieve consistency between their evaluations and their beliefs o Chancing people’s evaluation of the attitude object should result in changes in their beliefs about the object o Empirical evidence

Question 55

Attitudes towards the advertisement and the dual mediation hypothesis

Answer 55

 Dual mediation hypothesis: The attitude towards the advertisements influences brand attitudes through two pathways, namely indirectly via brand cognitions, and directly via evaluative conditioning.  Exposure to the advertisement elicits the expectations that use of the brand will have a number of positive consequences  Exposure to the advertisement elicits positive affect that will be transferred to the brand through processes of evaluative conditioning  These effects are stronger in studies that use novel brands, suggesting that the existence of prior brand attitudes reduces the impact of ad attitudes

Question 56

Dual mediation hypothesis:

Answer 56

The attitude towards the advertisements influences brand attitudes through two pathways, namely indirectly via brand cognitions, and directly via evaluative conditioning.

Question 57

Katz distinguished four functions of attitudes

Answer 57

1. Adjustment function  Maximize rewards, minimize penalties 2. Value-expressive function 3. Ego-defensive function 4. Knowledge function

Question 58

Katz’s theory does not

Answer 58

distinguish clearly between the function of holding a particular attitude and the function served by the attitude object itself To avoid this ambiguity, the functional theory of consumer goods focuses exclusively on the function served by the consumer goods and the goals consumers pursue in purchasing a particular good

Question 59

Attitudes serve an important function in

Answer 59

elping us to adapt to our physical and social environment

Question 60

two basic processes that enable us to bring order into our everyday chaos

Answer 60

Categorization and attitude formation

Question 61

Consumer goals and the functions of consumer goods

Answer 61

 Katz’s theory does not distinguish clearly between the function of holding a particular attitude and the function served by the attitude object itself  To avoid this ambiguity, the functional theory of consumer goods focuses exclusively on the function served by the consumer goods and the goals consumers pursue in purchasing a particular good

Question 62

The relationship between attitudes, goals, and intentions

Answer 62

 Goals: Cognitive representations of desired end-states. States that people evaluate positively and hold positive attitudes towards.  To be adopted as a goal, an end-state does not only have to be desirable, it also has to be perceived as attainable  There also has to be a positive discrepancy between one’s present state and another state for that other state to be adopted as a goal o Improvement over the present state  Once these criteria are met and a goal is adopted, an intention has been formed to reach that goal at some time in the future  Goals vary in abstractness o The most abstract goals are values o There are numerous ways to achieve an abstract goal, but not as many ways to achieve a concrete goal  Behavioral intention  Implementation intention  People typically pursue multiple goals, only some of which they might be aware of at any given time o Focal goals: Goals one actively pursues and of which one is consciously aware. o Background goals: Goals that might also influence goal pursuit, but that one might not explicitly be aware of at that time.

Question 63

Goals:

Answer 63

Cognitive representations of desired end-states. States that people evaluate positively and hold positive attitudes towards

Question 64

Focal goals:

Answer 64

Goals one actively pursues and of which one is consciously aware.

Question 65

Background goals:

Answer 65

Goals that might also influence goal pursuit, but that one might not explicitly be aware of at that time.

Question 66

Why people acquire goods

Answer 66

 Consumers buy goods in order to achieve some goal o They try to select certain goods based on the expectation that they will be the best means to reach that goal  Utilitarian goals o Utilitarian function: How well a certain object does the job that it is designed for. o Performance, reliability, quality  Self-expression goals o Thinking about the impression ownership of a good would make on other people o Communication something about yourself to others  Conspicuous consumption: Some people acquire expensive items not alone for their use but to display their wealth and to signal their economic status within society. o Research suggests that it may not be the economic elite that engages most in conspicuous consumption, but the less powerful sections of society o Appearing higher in the societal hierarchy than you actually are o Powerful individuals will feel less of a need to be concerned about what other people think about them; they can focus on the utilitarian function of goods  Self-monitoring scale: An individual difference measure that allows one to distinguish people for whom image aspects of a product are particularly important. o High self-monitors tend to be concerned about the image they project to others o Speculated that differences in self-monitoring mediate the effects of power on purchasing motives  Brands do not only have an image, they also have a “brand personality”, reflecting the stereotypic image people have of the typical user of that brand  Identity-building goals o Owning certain goods helps people to be the kind of person they want to be  Hedonic goals o Pleasure from owning and consuming or using a good  Implications for advertising  Many brands serve multiple goals, most often utilitarian and self-expression o Advertisers try to emphasize both goals in the same advertisement